Photography Art Project: Female Literary Characters

So.

I'm a very involved member of Sigma Tau Delta (National English Honor Society) on Dixie State campus.  Yes, our acronym is STD.  We have STDs on campus.  I am actually wearing a STD t-shirt right now.  Sometimes, I go to STD meetings and drink STD drinks and eat STD snacks.  Awesome.

Anyway, I had this idea last year to do a large-scale fundraiser for our club (our conference is in New Orleans this year--very expensive for us all to go).  I thought it would be cool to photograph students and faculty of the English department as female literary characters and sell the images in a calendar around campus and town.

Since last year, this project has grown wings and has become something much larger than a little calendar.  I've only recently begun the actual shoots and am loving it.  My new idea is to present the images as an art show, much like my mentor and hero Alexia Sinclair does with her collections of photography.  She's actually the one who inspired the idea in the first place.  You really must check out her Regal Twelve and Royal Dozen masterpieces.

I'm going to write about the shoots I'm doing for this project as they happen.  So far, I've photographed three models for my Nancy Drew photo shoot and one model for my Persepolis shoot.  The list of characters I'll be doing is as follows:

Claudia: Interview With a Vampire

Rebecca, Mrs. Danvers, Unnamed Protagonist: Rebecca

Lizzie Bennett: Pride & Prejudice

The Lady of Shalott: The Lady of Shalott

Rukmani: Nectar in a Sieve

Nancy Drew, Bess, George: Nancy Drew Series

Kamala: Siddhartha

Portia: The Merchant of Venice

Hester Prynn: The Scarlett Letter

Celie: The Color Purple

Helen Hirsh: Shindler's List

Marjane: Persepolis

 I chose these characters based on: a) Love of the story b) Strong characters I admire c) Fun, colorful types of characters that would be challenging and interesting to represent through photography.


Here are a couple of outtakes with the beautiful Trisha representing Marjane Satrapi.  The finishing on all the images is what will make or break them, but Persepolis in particular because it is a graphic novel.  I'm still working on the perfect formula for the post-processing on all of these images.  Anyway, here is Trisha:

And then I have Marissa, Haley, and Lindsay representing George, Bess, and Nancy Drew:

I'm excited to present the finished images (these are NOT the finished images) as an art show, later next year when all twelve are completed.  This Friday is the Rukmani shoot and I'm really excited.  She's one of my favorite literary characters on the list and I can't wait to get her juuuuuuuuust right.

Can't wait to share them all when they're done!